Using Land Readjustment Method as an Effective Urban Land Development Tool in Turkey

Abstract

In developing countries one of the urbanization issues is the provision of adequate land for new built-up areas. Therefore, it is important to implement land development plans to meet urban land needs and facilitate systematic urban development. There are different methods to realize these procedures and, worldwide, land expropriation is the most commonly used one. Compensation based procedures are mostly used to release land for urban land development applications, but this is both expensive and coercive. There needs to be a more effective way of providing land for new settlements and construction. Land readjustment (LR) is one of the land development tools used in the developing world to support urbanization requirements. It has the ability to solve land-use problems in urban areas when there is a need to redesign and create new urban settlements. In order to provide land for a continuing urban development process, LR has been implemented in Turkey. In particular, municipalities apply the method to release land for public areas such as roads, parks and play areas. This paper outlines, first, the implementation methods of urban land development plans in Turkey, and then the Turkish LR method is introduced in detail.